The Dark Highlander Read Online Free Page A

skirt rode up a few inches. He inhaled sharply, envisioning himself behind her. His entire body went tight with lust.
    Christ, she was lovely. Lush curves that could make a dead man stir.
    She leaned forward a smidgen, showing more of that sweet curve of the back of her thigh.
    His mouth went ferociously dry.
    No’ for me,
he warned himself, gritting his teeth and shifting to lessen the pressure on his suddenly, painfully hard cock. He took only experienced lasses to his bed. Lasses far older in both mind and body. Not reeking, as she did, of innocence. Of bright dreams and a bonny future.
    Sleek and worldly, with jaded palates and cynical hearts—they were the ones a man could tumble and leave with a bauble in the morn, no worse for the wear.
    She
was the kind a man kept.
    “Go,” he murmured to the driver, forcing his gaze away.
     
    Chloe tapped her foot impatiently, leaning against the wall beside the call-desk. The blasted man wasn’t there. She’d been waiting fifteen minutes, hoping he might appear. A few moments ago she’d finally told Bill to go on without her, that she’d catch a cab back to The Cloisters and expense it to the department.
    She drummed her fingers impatiently on the counter. She just wanted to deliver her parcel and go. The sooner she got rid of it, the sooner she could forget her part in the whole sordid affair.
    It occurred to her that unless she could find an alternative, she was probably going to end up wasting the rest of her day. A man who lived in the East 70s in such affluence was a man accustomed to having others await his convenience.
    Glancing about, she spied a possible alternative. Taking a deep breath and smoothing her suit, she tucked the parcel beneath her arm and strode briskly across the elegant grand foyer to the security desk. Two beefy men in crisp black-and-white uniforms snapped to attention as she approached.
    When she’d first arrived in New York last year, she’d known instantly that she would never be in the same league with city women. Polished and chic, they were Mercedes and BMWs and Jaguars, and Chloe Zanders was a . . . Jeep, or maybe a Toyota Highlander on a good day. Her purse never matched her shoes—she was lucky if her
shoe
matched her shoe. Still, she believed in working with what one had, so she did her best to put a little feminine charm into her walk, praying she wouldn’t break an ankle.
    “I have a delivery for Mr. MacKeltar,” she announced, curving her lips in what she hoped was a flirtatious smile, trying to soften them up enough that they’d let her go drop the blasted thing off where it would be a bit more secure. No way she was giving it to the pimply teen behind the call-desk. Nor to these beefy brutes.
    Two leering gazes swept her from head to toe. “I’m sure you do, honey,” the blond man drawled. He gave her another thorough look. “You’re not his usual type though.”
    “Mr. MacKeltar gets
lots
of deliveries,” his dark-haired companion smirked.
    Oh, great. Just great. The man’s a womanizer. Popcorn and God-only-knows what else on the pages. Grr.
    But she supposed she should be thankful, she told herself a few minutes later, as she rode the elevator up to the forty-third floor. They’d let her go up to the penthouse level unescorted, which was astounding in a luxury East-Side property.
    Leave it in his anteroom; it’s secure enough,
the blond had said, though his smarmy gaze had clearly said that he believed the real package was
her
, and he didn’t expect to see her again for days, at least.
    If Chloe had only known how true that was—that indeed he wouldn’t be seeing her again for days—she’d
never
have gotten on that elevator.
     
    Later, she would also reflect that if only the door hadn’t been unlocked, she would have been fine. But when she arrived in Mr. MacKeltar’s anteroom, which was overflowing with exotic fresh flowers and furnished with elegant chairs and magnificent rugs, all she’d been able to